At July's end we noted that thanks to Downtown Dallas Inc.'s generous donation, the city at long last had enough dough to lay down Phase 1 of Dallas Bike Plan’s Central Core Connector, which links the Santa Fe Trail and Katy Trail through downtown. And so it's off to work they go -- "they" being the three workers from Striping Technology, which the city's hired to lay down the bike-path markings being affixed to Lamar Street at this very moment.

When asked about the change, Keith Manoy, a senior transportation planner at City Hall, responds via email: "You may have noticed the markings on several streets downtown including Lamar, Main, Houston and others. These marking are all part of the Central Core Connection. We will also extend through the Cedars to the Sante Fe Trestle Trail." Lamar, he points out in a follow-up phone conversation, goes to the Santa Fe Trail.

Jim Wood, director of Planning, Transportation and Development for Downtown Dallas Inc., says, yes, Lamar's the route -- from the American Airlines Center, where bike lanes were laid down a couple of weeks back, to the Dallas Convention Center. And, yes, these are shared bike lanes, not dedicated or buffered lanes, like the one that showed up around Rosemont Elementary last week.

But "the markings are better than nothing," says Wood. "Everybody would like to see designated lanes, but there are some challenges, especially with downtown -- intersections and parking, for instance. But this is the first bike path through downtown. We'll see how this works, and maybe we can figure out some designated paths in the future."

As for when this will be finished: The workers putting down the markings guesstimate they have 200 to go as they make their way to the convention center and back to Woodall Rodgers. So ... "maybe a week?"